James Schramko here. I’m going to talk about the difference between underconfidence and overconfidence.
As an entrepreneur, you need to be confident. But if you get too confident, you can start being belligerent and upset people around you and set yourself up for a huge failure. Yet, if you’re underconfident, you may not achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself, people can pull you down. And there is a time where you really need to listen to that internal voice. Sometimes that internal voice can be a little bit crazy and lead you off a cliff. So how do you set the right level of confidence?
Firstly, it’s always good to retain your humility. Secondly, make sure you set trigger points or goal points that would help indicate to you if you’re actually achieving progress. If you go too far down the path, and I know this one guy who’s been working on the same business model for about three or four years now and has yet to achieve success, I would say he’s past the trigger point I would have set to say, Hey, this project is not going to work.
Beware of that sunk cost. You certainly need confidence. You just don’t want too much of it, where you’re going to upset people. So hopefully this helps you find the thin line between under-confident and overconfident. And I would also suggest, if you’re not at least a little bit confident, don’t become an entrepreneur, because you’re going to need it. You’ll have to put yourself out there, there will be challenges. It is a difficult journey that requires some confidence, belief in yourself that you can get it done.
And I would also continue to educate yourself and surround yourself with really good people who are going to tell you exactly how they feel. And then you can decide how much of that feedback you want to take. Take less feedback from friends or peers who don’t really know your market, or your customers, or you that well. And put more confidence in people who you’re paying to do the job like a coach or mentor who’s been down the path that you’re looking to go down, because they know and they’ll call you on it quickly and that can be really valuable.
So be open-minded, not too close-minded, but not so open-minded that you’ll be swayed by people who should know that their opinion doesn’t even matter.
Anyway, I’m James Schramko. I’m interested, how do you deal with being too confident or not confident enough?
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